Leadership

Board of Directors

Dr. Gary Fraser, Board Chairman

Dr. Gary Fraser is currently Assistant Dean of Full Time MBA Student Affairs at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management where he is responsible for academic services, student affairs, and student leadership for over 700 MBA students. He has previously worked as an independent education industry consultant for London Business School, UC Berkeley Haas, and the Toigo Foundation in addition to working with the University of Southern California and New York University. As Assistant Dean of the Full Time MBA Program and Career Services at the USC’s Marshall School of Business he was responsible for overseeing Academic Affairs, Student Engagement, Leadership Development and Career Services. In his time at USC, Marshall Dean Fraser helped to lead USC Marshall to its second best BusinessWeek ranking after years of decline. Prior to working in Higher Education, Dr. Fraser held positions in brand management at Sara Lee, Cadbury Beverages and Kraft/Nabisco. He received his Ed.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and his MBA from NYU Stern. While a student at NYU Stern he was President of the Association of Hispanic & Black Business Students, a Consortium Fellow, and a recipient of NYU’s prestigious President’s Service Award. He received his Bachelor of Science in Marketing and Advertising from Syracuse University. Dr. Fraseer is a board member of Minds Matter L.A.

Jimmy Abarca, Senior Quality Analyst, Kaiser Permanente

Mr. Abarca was born and raised in the San Fernando Valley and attended Los Angeles Unified School District schools from kindergarten through grade 12. After graduating from the University of California at Santa Cruz with a B.S. in Economics, Mr. Abarca joined Univision Music Group and Universal Music Group where for three years he worked as a Royalty Analyst and Assistant Manager of Royalty Accounting. He then worked for Yahoo! Inc. before leaving California to pursue an M.B.A. and graduated from the NYU Stern School of Business in 2009. Mr. Abarca returned to the Los Angeles area immediately after graduation and joined Kaiser Permanente in Burbank where he is a Sales Incentive Analyst.

Haleta Belai, Executive Immersion Manager, Centene Corporation

Ms. Belai is a service operations professional with experience managing operations across healthcare, education, and nonprofit sectors. Ms. Belai currently works in new business implementation for a Fortune 500 managed care organization, where she is completing an executive immersion rotation program. Previously, Ms. Belai worked in an external relations function for Achievement First, a charter management organization that manages a network of over 20 high-performing public charter schools in New York, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. In this role, she focused primarily on project management of New York governance initiatives and special projects. In her role with the External Relations team at Achievement First, Ms. Belai coordinated preparation, execution, and follow-up for bi-monthly charter school board meetings for six growing charter schools across the network’s Brooklyn-based cluster of schools. Prior to this role, Ms. Belai co-founded a successful nonprofit skill-training program for ex-commercial sex workers in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Ms. Belai holds a B.A. from Columbia University and an M.B.A. from the USC Marshall School of Business.

Jack Faherty, CFO, Homeboy Industries

Jack Faherty is a CPA and is currently the CFO for Homeboy Industries, a nonprofit that provides hope, training, and support to previously incarcerated and formerly gang involved men and women. He has extensive experience in nonprofit management, as well as corporate finance. Mr. Faherty serves on the board of the CompassioNow Foundation and is a founder and board member of their wholly owned tea company, Compassion Tea. CompassioNow supports medical clinics in rural Africa and Compassion Tea raises funds for CompassioNow through the sale of tea and related products. Jack has more than 30 years of corporate finance experience having served in roles such as VP of Financial Planning for the Uniform Division of Aramark Corporation. He was formerly the CFO of the Aerospace Division of Senior Plc., a British automotive and aerospace company. Jack lives in Agoura Hills California with his wife Christy and their two children. Jack serves as Collegiate's board treasurer.

Emilio Pack, CEO, STEM Prep

Emilio Pack’s two decades of experience in public education inform his belief that by investing in educators as leaders and giving them the site-level autonomy to put student needs first, we can achieve systemic reform and change. After helping to launch, staff, and lead charters for the Alliance College-Ready Public schools, including LA’s third-ranked top-performing public high school, he founded his own high school, Math and Science College Prep. He now leads STEM Prep, a charter management network that oversees a first-of-its-kind partnership between a traditional district elementary school, and recently merged charter middle and high school. In this role, he leverages strategic community, district, and cross-network charter partnerships to increase proficiency, graduation, and college acceptance rates for students of color, while focusing on reversing the under-representation of minorities in STEM-related fields. In 2015, Emilio Pack was profiled by L.A. Weekly Magazine as one of its People of the Year. The Los Angeles Business Journal also awarded STEM Prep the Latino Nonprofit of the Year in 2015.

Karl Reeb, President, CambriaPoint

Mr. Reeb is a business consultant and strategic executive with over 30 years of leadership experience with dynamic, high-growth organizations including Allergan Pharmaceuticals, AmeriCredit Corporation, Aramark Corporation, GlaxoSmithKline PLC, Smith International, Verizon Communications and Vodafone Group. He has served as a member of the Board of Directors for nonprofit organizations including the Arlington (Texas) Chamber of Commerce, the Charles Tandy American Enterprise Center of Texas Christian University’s Neely School of Business, and the University of Wisconsin Foundation. In recognition of his human resources leadership, Mr. Reeb is a member of the select HAART organization of UCLA. Mr. Reeb earned a BA from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and completed post-graduate studies at Stanford University and the University of Southern California.

Alfonso joined the Cesar Chavez Foundation in 2009 to manage its portfolio of 32 affordable housing communities, commercial and office properties and boasts more than 10 years of experience in property management. He was Director of Property Management for a real estate management and investment company where he not only monitored the property management team but also oversaw financial and operational affairs. He was also Vice President of Property Management for a full service commercial real estate brokerage and asset management firm. Alfonso earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Administration from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona and his property manager's certificate from the Institute of Real Estate Management. Alfonso is also a Certified Commercial Investment Member of CCIM.

School Leader

Vanessa Jackson, Executive Director

Founding school leader and Executive Director Vanessa Jackson was a Building Excellent Schools Fellow from 2013-2014. Before coming home to southern California to found Collegiate, Ms. Jackson taught grades 9 through 11 as Dean of College at Achievement First Brooklyn High School in New York City. In this role, she coached a team that supported 100% of students in the school’s founding class to secure acceptances to four-year colleges. Formerly, Ms. Jackson worked in organizational development with several charter networks and in new business development for Credit Suisse Private Banking. Ms. Jackson earned a BA from Princeton University, was a 2004 Fulbright Fellow and a 2005 Princeton Alumni Corps Fellow, and earned an MBA from New York University as a Catherine B. Reynolds Fellow in Social Entrepreneurship.

Building Excellent Schools

Building Excellent Schools (BES) is a national nonprofit organization committed to improving the academic achievement of underserved students in our nation’s urban centers. BES accomplishes this by training leaders to take on the demanding and urgent work of leading high-achieving, college-preparatory urban charter schools. What sets BES apart is its focus on entrepreneurial leadership. The BES approach equips school leaders with the skills they need to effectively manage instruction, operations, student and adult culture, and external relationships in a high-performing, urban school. BES-trained leaders are demanding of themselves and others. They are ambitious achievers. They sweat the small stuff because they know every detail matters – every minute matters – when it comes to closing the achievement gap.